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IRS officials in Washington were involved in targeting of conservative groups

Bronson said:
You're still whining about being called out for your dishonesty in the past? Absolutely hilarious. Talk about insecurity. Apparently I live in your head rent free :lol:

You laughably link articles from a biased source whimpering about "witchunts", while at the same time defending an out of control Government that is specifically targeting people politically for harassment and intimidation. What if under Obamacare you qualify for a life saving surgery, but the IRS who polices Obamacare says, "Have you donated to an organization like the Tea Party?" That's what happens when a corrupt and out of control administration politicizes an institution like the IRS. You have to remember the IRS didn't just target the Tea Party here. They also target Jewish groups and other religious institutions.

But hey go ahead and try and balance on your house of cards telling people nobody takes them seriously. Pot calling the kettle black. How embarrassing :lol:
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The funny thing about this post is that my previous posts refute it. You didn't even bother to see what I wrote but instead posted arguments that were pre-refuted!

Nice fail there.
 
obvious Child said:
The funny thing about this post is that my previous posts refute it. You didn't even bother to see what I wrote but instead posted arguments that were pre-refuted!

Nice fail there.
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You've refuted nothing. You never refute anything. You just spew nonsensical gibberish and make claims. It's beyond refute these groups were targeted. It's beyond refute they were harassed. It's beyond refute the IRS was used as a tool to intimidate the political opposition of the Democrats.

Do you think this scandal stops with the Obama Administration? Democrats have been pushing for political audits for years.

Senate Democrats Pushed for IRS Tea Party Snooping Before Criticizing It - Brian Walsh (usnews.com)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/us/politics/07irs.html

With growing scrutiny of the role of tax-exempt groups in political campaigns, Congressional Republicans are pushing back against Democrats by warning about the possible misuse of the Internal Revenue Service to audit conservative groups….And the Republicans are also upset about an I.R.S. review requested by Senator Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat who leads the Finance Committee, into the political activities of tax-exempt groups. Such a review threatens to "chill the legitimate exercise of First Amendment rights," wrote two Republican senators, Orrin G. Hatch of Utah and Jon Kyl of Arizona, in a letter sent to the I.R.S. on Wednesday. ... Democrats dismissed the Republicans' complaints as groundless.
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Liberal groups were approved without issue while Tea Party Groups were blocked and left hanging in limbo for months and months.

IRS approved liberal groups while Tea Party in limbo

Documents: IRS letters harassing conservative groups came from Washington, DC headquarters and from California offices, despite Inspector General's focus on Cincinnati employees | Mail Online

Conservative group says IRS approved nonprofit status after applying with

When September 2012 arrived with still no word from the IRS, Ryun determined that Media Trackers would likely never obtain standalone non-profit status, and he tried a new approach: Starting over. He applied for permanent non-profit status for a separate group called Greenhouse Solutions, a pre-existing organization that was reaching the end of its determination period.

The IRS approved Greenhouse Solutions’ request for non-profit status in three weeks.
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Bronson said:
You've refuted nothing. You never refute anything. You just spew nonsensical gibberish and make claims. It's beyond refute these groups were targeted. It's beyond refute they were harassed. It's beyond refute the IRS was used as a tool to intimidate the political opposition of the Democrats.
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Yawn.

More noise from Bronson.

I see you are still ignoring that 2/3rd of the audits weren't on TP groups.
I see you are still ignoring that the only group that got its exemption denied was a Democrat PAC.
I see you are still ignoring that the bulk of new applications for 501(c)4 were from Republican oriented groups.
I see you are still ignoring how the 501(c)4 code has been abused up the ***.

Funny, all of that was in my previous posts. Which you will not address. Because you can't.

I never argued that the Democrats didn't target them. What I pointed out was in actuality it doesn't come close to what you and your friends are alleging. And not a single person on your side has even touched upon the actual code abuse. You are treating this as a witch hunt and COMPLETELY IGNORING the reason the audits actually happened.

Even MORE appalling is that you seem to have no problem with similar audits done purely for political spite. You will not get into the actual code and abuse because you lack the knowledge and you stand absolutely no hope of ever winning there.

The whole "scandal" boils down to the abuse of 501(c)4s. You will not address this.
 
It appears there are more.....plus they also fast tracked Obama's Half Brother's Group.

Reports: IRS Spared Liberal Groups as Tea Party Languished, More Conservative Orgs Targeted Than First Thought.....

"Low Level" - Officials within the highest echelons of the agency were aware of the inappropriate targeting, including the last two commissioners -- at least one of whom appears to have misled Congress on this very question. Now Politico reports that Lerner herself sent at least one of the probing letters to an Ohio-based conservative group.

a process that would stretch for nearly three years and involve queries for detailed information on its social media activity, its organizational set-up, bylaws, membership and interactions with political officials. The letter threatened to close American PAGE’s case file unless additional information was received within 60 days.

These burdensome requests were apparently designed to bury the victimized groups in paperwork. Carol reported last night that some 58 percent of these applicants were asked for unnecessary information and data, according to the Inspector General's review. Some inquiries asked for screenshots of organizations' Facebook posts and even lists of what books (!) its members were reading.

In February 2010, the Champaign Tea Party in Illinois received approval of its tax-exempt status from the IRS in 90 days, no questions asked. That was the month before the Internal Revenue Service started singling out Tea Party groups for special treatment. There wouldn't be another Tea Party application approved for 27 months. In that time, the IRS approved perhaps dozens of applications from similar liberal and progressive groups, a USA TODAY review of IRS data shows. As applications from conservative groups sat in limbo, groups with liberal-sounding names had their applications approved in as little as nine months. With names including words like "Progress" or "Progressive," the liberal groups applied for the same tax status and were engaged in the same kinds of activities as the conservative groups.

Lerner also reportedly fast-tracked an approval for a foundation operated by President Obama's half brother, taking the extraordinary step of granting it retroactive tax-free status.

"Seventy-five organizations effected" - That number almost immediately swelled to 300. Now it's closer to 500:

We have an answer to that question now, too. Here's Carol again, quoting the cover letter from the IG's findings, dated yesterday: "A substantial number of applications have been under review, some for more than three years and through two election cycles, and remain open." Lest you even ask, nobody involved in this scheme has been disciplined (yet); just the opposite, in fact:

"Conservative groups seeking information from the Environmental Protection Agency have been routinely hindered by fees normally waived for media and watchdog groups, while fees for more than 90 percent of requests from green groups were waived, according to requests reviewed by the Competitive Enterprise Institute." This steady drumbeat of ugliness was enough to prompt NBC's Nightly News to kick off its broadcast with a Nixon comparison last evening, and for Jonathan Alter to pronounce the administration's crisis management efforts "disastrous:"

Parting quotation: "What we are witnessing is nothing less than a dramatic reversal of the nation’s political narrative.".....snip~

Reports: IRS Spared Liberal Groups as Tea Party Languished, More Conservative Orgs Targeted Than First Thought - Guy Benson
 
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Mithros said:
Um.....political organizations have to disclose their donors because historically anonymous campaign donations have led to widespread political corruption.

Saying that a tea party group is primarily engaged in social welfare is intellectually dishonest. Sure, if you want to hire a great lawyer, and bend/break the rules you can certainly get approved. But these groups have more in common with moveon.org (a 527) than with the AARP, (an actual 501(c)(4).
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Stop being obtuse. The IRS would have to deny them as a non profit before they could ask for donors AND if they declare them as a non profit they have no right to materials like facebok pages, rally attendance, membership lists but they would have a right to donor lists. But FIRST the IRS would have to declare them as a political organization, which they did not do.

Catch 22 really. The IRS tried to abuse both sides of the system.
 
obvious Child said:
Let's go over the facts. Because most of you have no fracken idea what you are talking about.

The GOP spent almost 10 times the amount on PACs that the Democrats did to the tune of nearly $300 million. Much of this was done by 501(c)4s which had nothing to do with social welfare. Second, the sole reason why they went the 4 designation is because it lets them hide donors which is effectively perverting the outcome of Citizens' United. CU made the trade off for unlimited spending for transparency. By using a 501(c)4 illegitimately to not engage in social welfare and hide donors, people like Rove are flat up abusing the code.

Second, 2/3rd of the audits had nothing to do with the Tea Party. See my other posts for the link.

Third, the ONLY GROUP THAT GOT DENIED was a Democrat leaning PAC.

Fourth, the number of applications that came in from the Tea Party were substantially more than everything else. The IRS is going to target Tea Party groups more for the simple reason that there were thousands of Tea Party related applications. Seriously, the concept of basic math escapes people here.
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Culpability was primarily through delaying the application process. Never reaching a decision while demanding more and more research materials into a given groups activities. Similar to the delays on oil permits. Same tactic.
 
obvious Child said:
Yawn.

More noise from Bronson.

I see you are still ignoring that 2/3rd of the audits weren't on TP groups.
I see you are still ignoring that the only group that got its exemption denied was a Democrat PAC.
I see you are still ignoring that the bulk of new applications for 501(c)4 were from Republican oriented groups.
I see you are still ignoring how the 501(c)4 code has been abused up the ***.

Funny, all of that was in my previous posts. Which you will not address. Because you can't.

I never argued that the Democrats didn't target them. What I pointed out was in actuality it doesn't come close to what you and your friends are alleging. And not a single person on your side has even touched upon the actual code abuse. You are treating this as a witch hunt and COMPLETELY IGNORING the reason the audits actually happened.

Even MORE appalling is that you seem to have no problem with similar audits done purely for political spite. You will not get into the actual code and abuse because you lack the knowledge and you stand absolutely no hope of ever winning there.

The whole "scandal" boils down to the abuse of 501(c)4s. You will not address this.
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It would be upon the Dems to change the law if they dont agree with it, not use the resources of the executive to abuse those applying legally. Seems you have ethics and legality confused and as a CPA, I would think you would know tax law and ethics dont even approach one another.
 
So a big government agency abused its power against certain groups of citizens. That is at least, unfortunate. Of course, since most of these groups are against the huge size of government and the President couldn't have known about all these issues because government is so big, that has to be more than just ironic.
 
OpportunityCost said:
Stop being obtuse. The IRS would have to deny them as a non profit before they could ask for donors AND if they declare them as a non profit they have no right to materials like facebok pages, rally attendance, membership lists but they would have a right to donor lists. But FIRST the IRS would have to declare them as a political organization, which they did not do.

Catch 22 really. The IRS tried to abuse both sides of the system.
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Heya OC. :2wave: Looks Like Obama is saying he don't believe this was Politically Motivated.

Carney: President Doesn't Necessarily Think IRS Was Politically Motivated, Or Something.....

dc33d4a8-7e9a-4aaa-9870-8000cdfdb50a.jpg


At today’s press briefing, Jay Carney reiterated much of what he said yesterday regarding the multiple scandals plaguing the Obama Administration, once again working to distance the president himself from his wayward colleagues.

Today, although he noted that the president felt “strongly” about the need for the tax code to be applied in a neutral manner, Carney made a point of saying that the president had no reason to doubt the IRS officials who claimed that the targeting was for purposes of efficiency. In other words, Carney seemed to suggest that the president didn’t believe the targeting was politically motivated—and yet, in the same breath, he noted a lack of “neutrality,” indicating that there was political bias present. "The president has no reason to doubt the Inspector General's report," Carney said, in which political bias was not named a factor in the targeting.

Turning to another unfolding indiscretion, reporters in the room seemed awfully curious about the president’s sudden renewed interest in passing media shield legislation, to help protect the press from unwarranted scrutiny over sources. Given the AP hacking discovery, isn’t the timing rather suspect, and perhaps a transparent attempt to save some face?

Reporters also wished to know what the president had to say on the hacking scandal, but again, Carney refused to comment owing to the “ongoing criminal investigation,” and the fact that there is a “firewall” between the White House and the Department of Justice during times such as these.....snip~

Carney: President Doesn't Necessarily Think IRS Was Politically Motivated, Or Something - Kate Hicks
 
This whole thing is ridiculous. Any group that has the function of political activity cannot be a charity and is not eligible for a federal tax exemption. Whether they are leftist or rightists, they are not tax exempt. Any political group that claims to be a charity deserves the extra scrutiny. I'm sure you'll find in the end of this politically motivated investigation that the IRS was simply doing what it was supposed to.
 
Graffias said:
This whole thing is ridiculous. Any group that has the function of political activity cannot be a charity and is not eligible for a federal tax exemption. Whether they are leftist or rightists, they are not tax exempt. Any political group that claims to be a charity deserves the extra scrutiny. I'm sure you'll find in the end of this politically motivated investigation that the IRS was simply doing what it was supposed to.
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The law is what it is, not what you think it should be.
 
obvious Child said:
Let's go over the facts. Because most of you have no fracken idea what you are talking about.

The GOP spent almost 10 times the amount on PACs that the Democrats did to the tune of nearly $300 million. Much of this was done by 501(c)4s which had nothing to do with social welfare. Second, the sole reason why they went the 4 designation is because it lets them hide donors which is effectively perverting the outcome of Citizens' United. CU made the trade off for unlimited spending for transparency. By using a 501(c)4 illegitimately to not engage in social welfare and hide donors, people like Rove are flat up abusing the code.

Second, 2/3rd of the audits had nothing to do with the Tea Party. See my other posts for the link.

Third, the ONLY GROUP THAT GOT DENIED was a Democrat leaning PAC.

Fourth, the number of applications that came in from the Tea Party were substantially more than everything else. The IRS is going to target Tea Party groups more for the simple reason that there were thousands of Tea Party related applications. Seriously, the concept of basic math escapes people here.
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Those are only some of the facts. Not sure why youre still trying to defend this when Obama is firing people over it.
 
obvious child said:
you do not to tangle with me on this. You will lose.

i am fully aware of the situation. You however, are not.

2/3rd of the audits had nothing to do with the tea party.
The only group denied an exemption was a democrat linked organization.
And the 501(c)4 has been abused to bypass the citizens' united ruling.

I suggest you start researching before you open your mouth. this is your only warning.
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lol!!!
 
obvious Child said:
You do not to tangle with me on this. You will lose.

I am fully aware of the situation. You however, are not.

2/3rd of the audits had nothing to do with the Tea Party.
The only group denied an exemption was a Democrat linked organization.
And the 501(c)4 has been abused to bypass the Citizens' United ruling.

I suggest you start researching before you open your mouth. This is your only warning.
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No, no, why would you hold back? You should not do that. Please tell us why Obama is wrong on this, no problems at IRS, just keep on keepin' on. Business as usual because there are no abuses or wrong doing. And go ahead and keep posting irrelevant stuff. Oh, and please with the "warnings". "This is your only warning." Try not to be so full of yourself, it is a bit laughable.
 
trfjr said:
You liberals sound like a bunch of whinny little children " well Bush did it also "
my 12 year old tries to use that same childish argument all the time "so and so did it also" do you think i let her off the hook

I have a solution for you lets put Bush back into office so then you can impeach him. would that satisfy you? would that make you shut up about Bush?

liberals are so predictable every time you say anything negative about Obama you can bet your right nut Bush will be brought up by the desperate left
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Speaking of predictable.
 
OpportunityCost said:
Culpability was primarily through delaying the application process. Never reaching a decision while demanding more and more research materials into a given groups activities. Similar to the delays on oil permits. Same tactic.
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They were still able to act as a non-profit group while waiting the approval of the IRS.
 
Graffias said:
This whole thing is ridiculous. Any group that has the function of political activity cannot be a charity and is not eligible for a federal tax exemption. Whether they are leftist or rightists, they are not tax exempt. Any political group that claims to be a charity deserves the extra scrutiny. I'm sure you'll find in the end of this politically motivated investigation that the IRS was simply doing what it was supposed to.
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The issue isn't the tax exempt status. The DNC and RNC are tax exempt, as they should be. All of theses groups have the same limited tax exempt status, they don't pay taxes on their income, but donors don't get to claim donations as charity.

The issue here is disclosure. 501(c)(4) organizations must submit their donors to the IRS, but do not have to make them publicly available. Before Citizens United, if they wanted to engage in politics they had to use special funds and would have to disclose all donors who contributed to those funds. After Citizens United, these groups were allowed to use general treasury funds.

That's why there was a 100% increase in these groups. Citizens United also freed corporations to use general funds to influence elections, but corporations don't want the backlash that would occur from supporting positions or candidates which their customers oppose. The groups were formed to funnel this money into the political process anonymously, and the IRS has been fairly incompetent in policing it.
 
obvious Child said:
I never argued that the Democrats didn't target them.
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Yet you are still wallowing in Obama worship defending the IRS. Nothing more needs to be said

You ignore the mountains of evidence that disprove your claim and think because 1 Democrat org was denied a claim for whatever reason, that this somehow absolves harassment and intimidation of private citizens based upon their political views.

This is why Big Government liberalism needs to be opposed. People like you never think it's big enough and when that power is abused and Government is used by liberals to harass and intimidate, people like you fall into goosestep behind it defending it.
 
Mithros said:
That's why there was a 100% increase in these groups. Citizens United also freed corporations to use general funds to influence elections, but corporations don't want the backlash that would occur from supporting positions or candidates which their customers oppose. The groups were formed to funnel this money into the political process anonymously, and the IRS has been fairly incompetent in policing it.
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But the 100% increase occurred from '09 to '12. Per the IG report the 'targeting' issue began in '10 prior to this doubling of applications. So what was the delay when historically the amount of applications was relatively flat?

And per the IG report MANY of the applications remained undetermined until late '12. Why is that?
 
Dickieboy said:
But the 100% increase occurred from '09 to '12. Per the IG report the 'targeting' issue began in '10 prior to this doubling of applications. So what was the delay when historically the amount of applications was relatively flat?

And per the IG report MANY of the applications remained undetermined until late '12. Why is that?
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The number of applications rose drastically after January 21, 2010 with Citizens United. This increase was primarily among political groups. We're dealing with events in reponse to this.

http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/TIGTA-AppendixVIandAppendixVII.pdf

(The extended timeline is FAR more informative. Actually.... everyone should read it. There is so much misinformation in the media it's scary)
 
Mithros said:
The number of applications rose drastically after January 21, 2010 with Citizens United. This increase was primarily among political groups. We're dealing with events in reponse to this.

http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/TIGTA-AppendixVIandAppendixVII.pdf

(The extended timeline is FAR more informative. Actually.... everyone should read it. There is so much misinformation in the media it's scary)
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I read it already but it doesn't substantiate your 'number of applications rose drastically after January 21, 2010' assertion. But this figure from the IG report refutes it specific to the subject at hand.

501c filings by year.jpg

Note the chart ranges by fiscal year and that 2010 (which ends Sept 30) was actually LOWER than 2009. I will stipulate there was an increase in '11-'12 but as this issue began in March '10, as your link states, one cannot proclaim this targeting began due to a substantial increase in applications...what am I missing?

As to the 'extended timeline' it was included in the complete IG report...did you read it? Further can you expound further on this 'so much misinformation in the media'?
 
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Dickieboy said:
I read it already but it doesn't substantiate your 'number of applications rose drastically after January 21, 2010' assertion. But this figure from the IG report refutes it specific to the subject at hand.

View attachment 67147597

Note the chart ranges by fiscal year and that 2010 (which ends Sept 30) was actually LOWER than 2009. I will stipulate there was an increase in '11-'12 but as this issue began in March '10, as your link states, one cannot proclaim this targeting began due to a substantial increase in applications...what am I missing?

As to the 'extended timeline' it was included in the complete IG report...did you read it? Further can you expound further on this 'so much misinformation in the media'?
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The commisioner testified that he was pretty sure that there was a significant increase. Maybe there wasn't? Maybe the numbers are wrong? Unsure..

As for misinformation, in the audit reports "TeaParty" was shorthand for conservative, at least most of the time. So when they say X number of "Tea Party" Groups, they don't mean that X number of groups were targeted because of their names. It's subtle, but it means that there weren't conservative groups outside of the 70ish reported.

Also, it's pretty clear that this was something the IRS struggled with. It was department wide. Basically there was a huge influx of conservative groups filing as public welfare groups under the guise of "education". The difference between education and politicking is difficult to define. So they knew that this was a concerted effort to "scam" the IRS, but they couldn't' figure out how to draw a consistent line. Someone devised a number of criteria. One of them was the BOLO with politically insensitive/biased keywords. This is "scandal" one.

The report doesn't show that conservative groups were targeted unfairly because they were conservative. Less than half of all groups exposed to invasive question were conservative groups.

As terrible as this sounded at first, it really doesn't seem like it was a serious issue. I mean, here we have 27 groups that had to answer a few too many questions, half of which were conservative. This was scandal two. Contrast that with the banks which incorrectly foreclosed on 4 million homeowners. IDK... the IRS doens't seem so bad.
 
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